Original Works { 10 galleries }
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12 images
Within Kenya's progressive youth culture is the Kibera Olympic Boxing Club, a group of low-income adolescents from the slum whose leader uses boxing as a way to engage with idle youth. The group's ethnic diversity is remarkable given Kenya's 2008 post-election violence in which people from several tribes were forced violently out of slums. Together, these boxers represent a nascent trend of cross-tribe brotherhood in a healing nation.
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19 images
As the population of second and third generation Hispanics increases dramatically in the United States, a new boldness can be sensed among Latinos in America, stretching far beyond the southern border states. Demographers in Pennsylvania say the towns of Bethlehem, Allentown and Reading are set to become majority-minority cities, where Hispanics comprise a bigger portion of the population than whites. As this minority population increases dramatically in the region, Latinos are inching closer to their own realization of the American Dream, while gradually shifting the physical and cultural landscapes of their communities.
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34 images
Fourteen year-old Tieara Bivens awaits the birth of her son, Adriel, in Syracuse, New York, where despite prevention efforts in city schools the rate of teen pregnancy is rising. "It was really hard for me to grow up without my father," Bivens said. "It just felt like there was a piece missing. So I always imagined that if I had kids, the dad would be there. But now it seems like Adriel's daddy isn't really gonna be there either."
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22 images
In the music industry, the path to success is a thousand miles long and paved with sleepless nights. "There's something about losing the mystique of all this that's just so crippling," says JT Daly, lead singer and frontman of ameritronica group Paper Route. // Scenes from the Are We All Forgotten tour.
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3 galleries
Dispatches from the Margins of Modern Agriculture
For centuries, humanity has benefitted from a generational intimacy with the land. But as farms and ranches continue to consolidate across America, traditional midsize farms – once the majority – are nearing extinction, and those who remain find themselves on the precipice of an ever-widening chasm into which more than four million farming families have vanished since 1948. Dubbed the hollowing out of agriculture, this global phenomenon of a “disappearing middle” is actively shaping the rural communities of our time. And for the thousands of children growing up in this context, the journey of self-discovery has become increasingly complicated.
The Last Generation is a coming-of-age story for these would-be farmers, chronicling their quest for identity as they choose to adapt or abandon a generational legacy around agriculture. By elevating the points of view of young people and their elders, the work illustrates the vital role traditional midsize farms and ranches have played in the preservation of culture over time, and asks ‘what is lost?’ when the forces shaping modern agriculture continue unabated. As a majority of the world’s producers are gradually pushed to the margins, and our collective connection to the land thins, The Last Generation offers a timeless visual record that dignifies those caught in the disappearing middle, and elevates those charting new pathways out of it.
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Bob Miller is an American photographer and filmmaker whose documentary practice has illuminated contemporary social issues in over a dozen countries. Drawn to his home state by the passing of his grandfathers, The Last Generation began as an intimate reflection on the photographer’s own agricultural lineage. As the nature of farming changes rapidly in America and rural communities begin to confront their own post-agricultural identity, he hopes this expanding reportage will encourage audiences of all ages to sit at the feet of their elders, and consider how the mysteries of generational knowledge and skill might be preserved before they are lost.
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62 images
The unrest that gripped Kenyan slums, neighborhoods and villages following the disputed 2007 presidential election was the worst outbreak of ethnically motivated violence Kenya had seen since independence. Fueled by long-standing ethnic hatred, a precise hostility ripped through the streets of Nairobi, spreading as far as the cities of Eldoret, Naivasha and Kisumu. The largest Kenyan tribe, the Kikuyus, were the first to be targeted and uprooted from their homes and businesses. What followed was an ethnic conflict in which Kenyan youth, typically unemployed and idle, were routinely bribed by the political elite to carry out acts of violence against their neighbors. Ironically, youth were also the greatest victims of the violence, culminating in the deaths of over 1,000 Kenyans and the displacement of 600,000.
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12 images
During the post-election violence of 2007 and 2008, impoverished youth in Kenya were routinely bribed by the nation's political elite to carry out acts of violence in their communities. Idleness among the youth, combined a history of ethnic rivalries, were cited as a key factors to the violence, culminating in the deaths of over 1,200 Kenyans and the displacement of over 600,000. As a response to the violence, many youth have begun to seize active roles in the reform of their nation, and grassroots initiatives led by youth have begun to improve the quality of life for those living in the direst of conditions. Termed “youth groups” on the street, these initiatives could represent the future of long-term socioeconomic development in Kenya.
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